Visa Europe cements alliance with Monitise: Invests £24.7m

Monitise, the technology company delivering mobile banking, payments and commerce networks worldwide, is further strengthening its alliance with Visa Europe, which is investing £24.7 million in Monitise at an issue price of 35p per share for 70.5 million new Monitise shares.

As part of the subscription for Monitise shares, Visa Europe President and Chief Executive Peter Ayliffe, will join Monitise’s Board of Directors.

Monitise also announces it has agreed to acquire the 51% stake in its US joint venture, Monitise Americas, held by Metavante Corporation, a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (NYSE: FIS) (“FIS”). FIS is one of the world’s largest global providers dedicated to banking and payments technologies.

In consideration for the purchase, Metavante will be issued with a 3.3% stake in Monitise plc. Completion is conditional on shares being admitted to trading on AIM. This transaction continues the strong commercial relationship between FIS and Monitise and the two companies will continue working together to offer world-leading mobile money services to financial institutions in key markets.

Monitise’s acquisition of the 51% stake in Monitise Americas values that business at $29.4 million.

Following the Visa Europe subscription and the issue of shares to FIS, Visa Europe’s and FIS’s respective shareholdings in Monitise will be 8.8% and 3.3%. Both transactions are based on an issue price of 35p.

These key relationships with Visa Europe and FIS strengthen Monitise’s position as the platform of choice for mobile money in the key European and US mobile money markets. Monitise has an existing global alliance agreement with Visa Inc., which is an independent and separate company to Visa Europe, and today’s announcement results in both companies now having strategic investments in Monitise.

Peter Ayliffe, CEO of Visa Europe, comments:”We believe that the growth of mobile phone services and e-commerce, together with the evolution of the mobile handset into the smartphone, present two of the most significant opportunities for the payments technology industry today. To ensure Visa Europe is at the forefront, we can announce today that we have made a significant investment in Monitise, our mobile payment technology strategic partner, as a demonstration of our belief in the crucial role that mobile has to play in the further development of the payments industry and also of our commitment to delivering the future of payments across Europe. Monitise’s mobile platform expertise supports our drive to lead innovation in payments technology and will help us continue to deliver a range of best-in-class, industry-leading services for our members – Europe’s leading payment providers.

“Monitise has played an integral role in the recent launch of Visa Personal Payments and Visa Alerts. We see these as the first of many successful services that we can develop for the benefit of our members and their customers in the coming months and years. My appointment to the Monitise board, through this investment, will allow us to directly influence product development to help meet the needs of our customers.

“Mobile payments are one of the key pillars of Visa’s future of payments. We are already investing extensively in NFC, embedding the Visa mobile payment application into the SIM and core chip set in the mobile handset, as well as introducing bridging technologies like the iCarte application, recognising that it will take time for all mobile handsets to have NFC embedded within them. We are here to make payments technologies available to our members in whatever format they require to offer the services best suited to their end consumer. For Visa, it is about offering the widest possible choice, with all the security and reliability that our members know they can expect from us, and that consumers demand from payments technologies.”

Monitise believes the market opportunities for its mobile technology business in Europe and North America and high-growth territories worldwide are greater today than at any time before. Monitise has a strong balance sheet to exploit opportunities where it assesses they will further enhance shareholder value.

Monitise Group Chief Executive Alastair Lukies commented:“Visa Europe’s investment in Monitise, coupled with a deepening relationship eight months after our two companies first entered into a partnership, establishes our role as the platform of choice for mobile money services in Europe. We are excited by the opportunities ahead for Monitise and the global mobile money industry as mobiles increasingly become the accepted new way to bank, pay and shop.

“Our evolved relationship with FISensures that Monitise is ideally placed to play a leadership role in the North American mobile money market, which is following similar trends of growth to those we have experienced in the UK over the past 12 months. It has always been our strategy to partner with the world’s leading companies in a way that ensures optimal value for our shareholders. Monitise is evolving fast. In the summer of 2010, we announced a fundraising at 20.75p. At that time, we had live mobile banking platforms in the UK and US and anticipated further growth internationally, as well as substantial new opportunities emerging in both mobile payments and mobile commerce.

We have now established a clear and proven leadership position in the mobile money space. Our technology underpins services in mobile banking, payments and commerce for millions of consumers on four continents with the value of mobile transfers and payments alone running into billions of pounds per year and growing.”

Monitise Group Chairman Duncan McIntyre added:“We look forward to working more closely with Visa Europe to develop innovative, bank-grade, value-creating payment solutions for its member banks and partners. We remain excited about our new relationship with FIS and how we are taking advantage of increasing opportunities in mobile money. The strength and breadth of the partnerships built over several years are key validations that our strategy is delivering for our clients and partners worldwide across developed, hybrid and emerging markets.”